aarn

Run a little cyanoacrylate/super glue into the crack in the plastic housing of the hinge. Wait a couple of minutes, cover keyboard/screen etc. with cloth/tissue, squirt the tiniest portion of WD40 (or cheap BigC/Tesco generic) using the plastic tube as supplied. Check your friction-free action!

Poo-poo to those nay-sayer posters who decry your redundant technology! AA

As Lop3 suggests, you can do the combined income thing. Just tootle up to aussie embassy (South Sathoen Rd, BKK - bus No 149 leaving outside southern bus terminal and passing close to Thonburi rail terminus will eventually drop you off outside the security gate of the emb.). There, fill in a statutory declaration attesting to your monthly/annual income in THB. Do this any time in the month/30 days before your extension is due. Emb. staff prefer you to fill out and sign the stat dec on the spot, for some reason... they don't seem to look closely at bank/social security documents.

If your total annual income is < 800,000B, then you'll need a letter (costs 100-300B) from your bank, issued the day you apply for extension, indicating your bank balance. With the combined income method, no need to 'season' the B in the bank for 2/3 months, can top-up the day before application.

Of course, some staff in Immi offices are not fully aware of all procedures, so cross all 'T's and dot all 'I's. Good luck, AA

I hope you are writing an autobiography and will post it here 'coz already reference to euphorics, injury and missed appointments is making for great reading, please at least let us know what further misadventures occur at Immi.

Keep up the good work, AA

By the way, if you go to Cambo and try to come back to Thai the same day, there will a stern request for consideration of a donation to the Cambodian tea-time fund. They figure you pay $20 for a visa, then you can afford to offer a similar gratuity for having placed your toes in their 'fine' country.

Malaysia no probs. AA

A similar problem encountered in the latest linux mint 15 using Mate 1.6, might have to send some of those comp guys back to school. AA

Well, us aussies were living high on the hog, off the fat of the lamb up to the 1970s, then off the fat of the fat of the land (thanks to Gina and co. sending boatloads of it to China/India) until this year. Now we've inevitably come-a-cropper 'coz various governments sold off state enterprises, which now can't afford to do business in oz 'coz the wages are too high. What industrial base there once was... is going down the gurgler of companies moving maintenance offshore, and CEOs sucking up $Ms for downsizing their workforce.

When the Chinese and Indian economies level out, there's gonna be a lot of unemployed aussies running around trying to catch and eat any remaining wooly jumpers, or following Bob Katter up to the tropics and growing vegies. But it has been good fiddlin' while R(H)ome burned...

Getting off me high horse, cheers, AA

Ah, the lights are on in Immigration. My last retirement extension was due in the middle of a 90-day reporting period. Thus, I had to contact Immi on ~ days 1, 45 and 90, of a 90-day period. More work for Immi (and myself). By 'synchronising' the application for retirement extension with the commencement of 90-day report period, all parties are better off.

By the way, was there any suggestion that a consideration for 'tea money' may have been appropriate??? Cheers, AA

Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately the best option - ditching the housemates - not on (at present...).

Linux users might like to read on. Searching to improve wifi speed, I found this thread http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=47766

Opened a terminal and typed in [~$] iwconfig

looking at the output, it gave a clue for improvement so typed in [~$] sudo leafpad /etc/rc.local

then altered the document by adding the line: iwconfig wlan0 rate 54M

as per the thread. Seems (???) to have improved speed.

Another tool (for linux) is iftop ([~$] sudo apt-get install iftop), which is available in synaptic package manager.

Designed to let the user see who/what is logged into the network, and how much these commensals/parasites are sucking up.

I can bring up the interface, but it is static, must be missing a few dependencies... sigh. AA

Here is the thread I mentioned - sorry it it is off-target.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/633283-why-wont-scanpdf-file-attach-to-an-e-mail/

Help please, my housemates are sucking up the wifi bandwidth with gaming and livestreaming (Thai) TV.

Any tips as to how to increase my share?

Using Chrome, Lubuntu 13.04, i7-3610 QM processor, ssd with 8Gb RAM.

Thanks in advance

There was a post here ~ one month, similar problem. Suggestions included clearing the cache in 'settings', can't remember - try trawling back through this forum.

Good luck, AA

April last year a friend rode a 125cc to main PO in Uttaradit, paid 2kB, 10 days later guy from PO rode it 3km from regional PO in Chumphon,

to deliver to the address she gave. No damage to newish bike. AA

Malaysia appreciates the that people need wifi hence http://www.klia.com.my/index.php/component/content/article/26.html

If that is down, all McDonalds in Malaysia have courtesy wifi and an ice-cream cone only costs 10.5 Baht (tax inclusive).

Be warned, if you are planning to meet friends travelling on AirAsia, the LCCT (low cost carrier terminal) is 20 min away. AA

< have always used proper stands myself, but my mate used to hang is on the washing line with the line hooked under the saddle, seemed to work okay for him to carry out a multitude of maintenance tasks. Just an idea. >

Good thinking, captain. When working on my machine(s), i just make a loop from a piece of rope (suspended from a ceiling-beam, tree branch etc), hook it under the seat, and adjust height to suit.

For a stand to keep your machine upright (rather than leaning against a wall), use a tree branch ~ 60cm long, with a fork at the top. Doubles as a dog-dissuader when suspended from a scabbard mounted on the handlebars. And hasn't LOS been overtaken by dogs that need dissuading these past 18 years...AA

Here's a straight-forward set of tips, sorry if you already are aware of this

http://community.skype.com/t5/Windows-desktop-client/Skype-Problems-Troubleshooting/td-p/52260

If you use truecrypt, better to delete any history of it on your IT armada, prior to returning to USA, Australia, or such BigBrotherly places.

TrueCrypt is sure to set bells ringing in customs. AA

If you are truly destitute, get a Thai person to get you a ticket in third class - free of course.

If you have retirement extension and/or driver's licence, why not? AA

If you are a K-Banker, don't use an isolated ATM machine.

Only use an ATM outside a bank branch - so when a problem occurs, you can go inside the bank and sort it.

K-Bank ATMs don't discriminate Thai/farang, all customers are fair game. AA

If your laptop gonna fail because of HDD rather than motherboard problems, replace with new HDD (or ssd) and install your knoppix/other linux.

If can still access old HDD after changing, use old HDD for storage.

Changed my life already... Cheers, AA

I have a bias towards unetbootin because, I think, that is the only live-usb-creator that can be used from windoze and/or linux.

Are you using knoppix/opensuse 'coz they were the first ones you were introduced to?

Anyway, you can always try to unetbootin knoppix.

I think unetbootin-583 is latest, developer (GKovacs) updates from time-to-time.

Believe me, the ubuntu repos are massive, lub/xub/edU can access them, so please try an Ub/derivative.

$US40 for 64Gb flash - sounds OK. usb3 should be faster than usb2. AA

I tried a few things, found http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ best

You can do car relocations in NZ. Don't know if this is much use

http://www.standbyrelocations.com/default.aspx?c=2

I used this company ~ five times in last decade, in Austr. AA

I only use unetbootin to create live usb sticks, found pendrivelinux had some problems (some time ago).

Lubuntu and Xubuntu are smaller (~700Mb) than Ubuntu.

I use Lub 13.04 (64bit) on main machine, and Zorin 6.2 lite on older 32bit machine. In Lub chrome is default browser, gnumeric for broadsheet, abiword is like the old MS word 6.0, but you can create (unetbootin) persistence and download firefox, libreoffice, calibre etc. from repositories. Zorin - not sure - have to download the .iso with FFox for starters.

<I've been doing what you want to do for a number of years, except I'm using two flash drives, one 8 GB for the OS and the other a 16 GB for my data.>

top idea! After making the live usb, you can remove the HDD (very easy - google youtube with your computer brand etc., if unsure - generally only need small philips-head screwdriver) and thereby I think even UEFI BIOS will recognise your usb, however might require a little tinkering. AA

Try installing gparted (or somesuch disk analyzer) from the DEB repositories. Then find that empty space, and format as ex3 or ex4, and then expand your O/S into the space.

You mightn't be able to do this unless you unmount your O/S - of course that won't work. But if you have another flash, put another linux on it, and attack you knoppix using on the other flashdrive. Good luck, AA

As buenavad posted, you can bring your windoze misadventure to a satisfactory conclusion by getting someone to create a live linux usb, which will allow you to explore then copy your precious files to another HDD.

Be aware, you can get another copy of win 7 ult online, put it on a usb, then using your original licence key, reinstall to new HDD/ssd.

Thus you don't have to buy a new copy windoze... or try a dodgy local one.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/hard-drive-failure-windows-reinstall-and-product/718a42de-f8ab-4909-8bb0-5bad037f6b00?msgId=74aedac3-cd35-411a-811c-c0788afaa5d2&tab=AllReplies

Cheers, AA